


Seven Devils

by OhLawdSaveUs



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Woman (Comic), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Agent Romanoff - Freeform, Army Brat!Carol, Assassin!Jessica, Bisexual!Steve, Bruce is OK, Bucky isn't sure at first, Bucky remembers everything, F/F, F/M, Father-figure!Bruce, From S1 AoS, Goes from AoU on, He wants to find Steve but he's scared, Jessica Needs a Hug, M/M, Miguel is bomb, Nat helps him, Slow Burn, Sort of Fitzsimmons, bc shes the ultimate bro, bisexual!Bucky, just a little sad, maybe smut, non-canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:44:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhLawdSaveUs/pseuds/OhLawdSaveUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything happens for a reason, and seventy year old strings tie together in 2015.</p>
<p>Set after AoU, with Bruce somehow finding himself as a guardian for three teenagers and a reclaimed super soldier in Wakanda, Natasha trying to find out secrets that weren't on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar and Sam is helping Steve to find Bucky and tags along with Nat and her crew for the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Devils

Fluorescent light bulbs flickered and buzzed overhead, and she strode proudly across the linoleum floor covered in blood and bodies. She felt electric, static, completely high on the rush of adrenaline that had sustained her through the fight. Several masked guards lay slumped in her path. She stepped over them, walking with purpose.

It hadn't lasted long. After appearing seemingly out of thin air, the guards on duty had fought with the panicked rage of cornered animals, but, fighting with cold determination, it had been a fight biased to the Mysterious Stranger. They hadn't stood a chance.

She passed through a door at the end of the bloody hall, carelessly left ajar by the guards who had run (stupidly) into the chaos. Inside, it was as if she had stumbled into a different world. The clean, sterilised theme of the building outside had vanished, leaving a domed, dark chamber.

She noticed, with a sliver of fear, odd tools and machines lining the curved brick walls. It threw her back to her development days, back in Köln. She shivered involuntarily when she spotted the table. Placed in the center, with sharp white lights, there was a metal surgical table, and a mauled subject.

She felt sick. It hadn't been the first time she had seen one of their "experiments", but it didn't matter how many she encountered; every time she saw another, she felt that stab of dread and horror, that disgusting voice in her head saying 'that could have been us'.

The person on the table was barely human. Their arms and legs had been viciously amputated, bloody stubs left behind in the wake. Their stomach was distended, torso stretched with whatever had been stuffed inside. She hadn't noticed that she hadn't been breathing until her lungs gave out a shaky breath.

It could've been five minutes that she'd spent staring, or fifteen. It was so quiet, only her breathing and the soft wheezing of the poor soul filling the chamber with a dark sadness. In an act of compassion, she placed her hand on their chest, feeling the laboured heaves with each breath, before reaching and smoothing some stray strands of hair off their face which was left, always left, remarkably intact, except the angry red marks around their closed eyes,

At the touch, their eyes fluttered open. A dark, chocolaty brown, they appeared too soft for this. A stark contrast to the sharp needles and knives, and ice-cold indifference that their handlers always showed, they reminded her of her siblings. They all had warm brown eyes, the gentle features of her father. She remembered her father in memories like he was in a sepia photo; golden, shaded and faded around the edges.

They raised their eyes, wincing in the light, to meet hers. For a moment, nothing happened, until they opened their mouth to speak, laboriously, and instead coughing and choking.

They're not going to last long enough to recover, she thought grimly.

They didn't speak again and instead both of them kept a steady silence, until the subject's breath quickened briefly, they gasped as though they were coming up from an underwater dive, and she couldn't hear any more breathing besides her own.

Sadly, she rested her head on their chest. No heartbeat. No sound. Nothing. After this, if any soldiers or scientists survived, or if this place was discovered by Hydra before the remnants of federal agencies like S.H.I.E.L.D. got to it, there would be no trace that this person existed, wiped clean from this earth, save for the haunting memory left behind for her to recall in fitful sleep and shocking dreams.

Footsteps coming fast down the hall snapped her back, and she watched as a man in a white lab coat burst through the door and stumbled wildly into the chamber, slamming it shut behind him. He never even noticed her. He was too scared, she figured Miguel had found him.

He fell against the closed door, and suddenly her blood boiled. This man is a monster, a voice told her. Look at what he did. That body didn't need to be here, it added. For maybe one of the first times in her life, she agreed, and before she could tell what she was doing she was leaping across the room with bouncing strides, while her target let out a frightened yelp.

She grabbed him by his lapels and threw him into the room, watched as he slammed against the table and fell to the cobbled floor. She got to him and he pleaded "Please! You-you've got to- unh!", -he grunted as she punched him hard in the face- "You've got to understand! I'm not the one you want!" Red mist swirled in her vision and her mind pulsed with a righteous vengeance, a fierce desire to right their wrongs. If she couldn't bring their victims back to life, well then, she'd just have to send them with their guinea pigs for divine punishment.

He kept begging, even when she broke his nose. Even when she smashed his orbital sockets. Even when she finally broke through the skull and sank her fist angrily into mush. Then he stopped, leaving her to keep hitting, covering her fist and clothes with blood, bone and grey matter. Until, as though she was hearing it from a radio down a street in a busy city, someone yelled at her to stop.

"Jess! Jess come on please! Stop! Jess, stop!" She froze and turned. Miguel, standing five feet away, hands raised defensively. He looked like a figure in a kaleidoscope, blue fabric, red designs and brown splatters of drying blood, and she stood slowly. He walked to her cautiously, and raised his arms. His mask covered his head, and like her he was dressed in protective combat armour, made of Kevlar and shock proof material that completely covered him from head to foot and designed with the Day of the Dead decals he loved to draw and paint.

She hugged him tightly, wrapping her arms around his waist when he rested his chin on her head. Gently, he persuaded her to walk with him, to leave this horror behind. As he lead her out, one arm wrapped around her shoulders she glanced back, seeing the scene through the clear panes of her goggles. The scientist, headless and lying in a pool of blood, and the subject, ominous even in death. On its arm, a tattoo shone, an interesting and cool design to people who didn't know better, the skull and longsword wound with tentacles. The sign of Project Excalibur and the Valkyries, the horrible sign that followed her wherever she went, leaving destruction behind and scars that cannot heal, and dragging an aftertaste of death with every step she took, leaving her weak and disturbed.

***

"Don't do it".

Bruce didn't even have to look up from his newspaper to notice Barnes reaching for the top of the freezer, who froze with his flesh hand stretched out. He just ruffled the pages and crossed his legs and kept reading. "Do what??" Barnes asked incredulously, feigning innocence, but lowering his hand all the same.

"You've been off them for three days now, James. You don't want to break your streak". Barnes sat down sullenly at the table, resting his arms on the cold wood as Banner slid a cup of coffee across the table. "Off nicotine, on caffeine", James sighed, picking up the porcelain cup and rolling it slightly in his hands. Banner smirked and set down his paper. He watched Barnes through sleepy eyes, taking in the choppy haircut Jessica had given him two days after he'd woken up and had originally objected to, and continued to complain about to that day (although at this point everyone that stayed in the apartment had come across Barnes with a small smile, looking in a mirror and touching his hair gingerly, unable to believe the change), the expression which had become softer since his arrival weeks prior, the metal arm which Banner had used his knowledge of Tony's tech to improve and power, after the group effort of removing the tiny nuclear reactor which simultaneously powered his arm and poisoned him.

He looked healthier and more comfortable than Banner had ever seen him, even though he was on edge from giving up smoking, and was looking healthier and more comfortable with every passing day. Which was great. But everyday, his walk that had reminded him of one of Tony's prototypes, calculated and stilted, became smooth and more like a stride, and reminded him painfully of Natasha.

They were achingly similar, with the same humour, sharp wit and bright laugh. It was a wonder that they came from two separate organisations and weren't un-identical clones. It also forced him to remember what he'd done after Ultron, which was far from pleasant but, to him, justified. She deserved better than what he could offer her. It had hurt like hell, but he had hoped the both of them were better for it.

Barnes' personality had also explained why Steve and Nat got on like a house on fire. Best friends since childhood... Steve had a friend-type. Natasha was charismatic, charming and friendly, with a mysterious personality and some of the most interesting stories to tell. She was everyone's friend-type. He ran his hands through his hair as James took a hesitant sip of the coffee and winced.  
It was cold coffee.  
Bruce missed her. He missed her smirk and her laugh, her independence. She didn't need anyone. She hadn't needed to be around him. But she had wanted to. He loved her and now he missed her like Barnes was missing his real left arm.

Sunlight from a crack in the kitchen curtains shone off its smooth metal, half hidden under Barnes' large cotton shirt, which bunched at his elbows and, due to its extreme size, hung off him like a blanket. "How's it feeling?" Bruce asked, dropping his arms to his lap. "Nothing bothering you?"

Barnes grinned in response and huffed out a laugh. "Everything's peachy, doc. You did a great job". He stretched and watched his metal arm as it whirred quietly and moved as smooth as his flesh hand. "Don't worry about it." It felt natural, after seventy years, to have a metal arm. Now that he had the added bonuses that Banner installed, it felt more like a privilege than a necessity but he knew that was only because of the vast amount of training and money that had gone into developing this technology and he'd seen others who'd lost limbs but couldn't afford the crazy price for one as advanced as his. He just counted his lucky stars. All two of them.

"What are you old people talking 'bout?" Carol walked in, rubbing her eyes. "That useless waif sleeping in the other room", Barnes replied brightly, narrowly ducking from Carol's hand as she swatted at him. "That useless waif is awake, actually" she laughed. "And she's not useless. She can burp the alphabet". Banner recoiled in shock, theatrically throwing his hand to his chest "Miss Carol, why ever would you think we were speaking of you!?"

"Yeah Carol, Jeez." Tired, his voice low after waking up, Miguel sauntered in as he usually did, like a cat. Miguel's movement was fluid and smooth and based on agility and speed. Fighting, you could barely see him, only a flash of blue and red ricocheting off walls and soldiers. Compared to Jess and Carol, he differed so much. "He obviously meant Jess. Goddamn. Or as Barnes would say, gosh darn it!!" He swung his arm like some old man from a Western, and Barnes scowled from his coffee just as a a blur of black hair swept in, caught Miguel's legs and knocked him to the ground. "Don't bully the elderly Miguel! It's not polite", Jess corrected as Barnes turned with a gasp of indignation to Bruce, who was grinning and coughing in an attempt not to laugh. He leaned back in his chair and waved off the cackling trio with resign. Though she couldn't fly, Jess often reminded people of a bird; flighty, jittery and full of energy both physically and metaphorically. She leaped from place to place, giddy and chirpy like a little sparrow.

Carol, who began making toast and eggs, was raised in the army. Even with her 'miracle', she fought based brute strength like a soldier. She got on well with them, considering that she had had zero connections to anyone there at first. Jess and Miguel were practically siblings, Bruce and James knew each other from extensive research on both sides and also the tiny fact that James had survived so far thanks to Banner's intervention. Carol had popped out of nowhere, after following Jess home the night she stole an arc reactor. She and James had become friends and they often went down to the gym across town to train, and she soon got him up to date with new U.S. Military fighting techniques.

Still, their merry band had a sort of family unit feel to it, with Banner and James as the father figures, or weird uncles (Carol called them her grandparents. Banner found it funny and accepted the nicknames with only slight grumbling, James questioned, to Jessica and Miguel's eternal delight, whether he was old enough to qualify as a grandparent), while the rest of them were assigned as assorted nephews and nieces. It worked well, considering most of them vanished during the days and nights, coming home hours or even, on at least two occasions, days later.

Banner was the constant in the sometimes confusing equation. He rarely left home, and most times if someone else did they would return to find him sitting in the plush reclining chair reading, surfing the Internet, tending to another person who stumbled home with a bullet wound or knife in their leg or memorably, a Barbie doll rammed through Jess' side, its head missing and its neck used as a shank. When he did leave, it was to take a walk and breathe the fresh Wakandan air, the beautiful empire of the prosperous Prince T'challa.

Bruce often walked around the parks and public buildings, wearing a hood so he wouldn't be recognised. The city had not forgotten the damage he'd done, and to this day was still rebuilding.

Every time Bruce left he would come back with doughnuts or pizza for whoever was home. He liked this home of his. It felt like the Avengers without the added pressure of having to control the Hulk while he was mad. The teens and Barnes all knew, they knew almost everything about each other by this point, they just didn't care. When Jess and Miguel found out, their eyes widened but they just shrugged. "Doesn't particularly matter," she'd told him, "what you've done. Only you're doing your best not to make the same mistakes. We've all done bad things. You just gotta move on, and make sure things are different the second time around."

He'd liked her for that. He liked them all, but she was his favourite. She was carefree, when it was a good day. On a bad day, it would take the best efforts of Miguel or Barnes to calm her down, to ease her through panic attacks or a dark depression that could fall or lift in the blink of an eye. He could relate a bit to that.

They were good people, Banner thought later on as he left Miguel and Barnes at home, risking returning to find the toaster modified into an EMP device as part of Miguel's latest lesson in advanced mechanics or something. Good people caught in bad circumstances. He passed by a library, with its large columns, and reveled in the rain.

Wakanda was normally a scorching city, a popular tourist destination thanks to its exotic food, culture, weather and architecture. The sun could split rocks on most days, so when it rained it poured, smashing off the sidewalks and unlucky pedestrians with heavy falls. Bruce loved it, and would let his hood fall when he stood out in a park, surrounded by trees with no one around, to feel the cooling drops and cold shock. It was peaceful and the atmosphere felt like the summer home in a forest he used to go to with his aunt and father when he was a child.

He walked into a doughnut shop three blocks from their house (Technically, it belonged solely to Banner. He had rented it, and the others had popped up out of nowhere, but now it felt like they owned it too.) and bought a box to bring back to whoever was still there. Jess and Carol had gone out before he had left. Not on a 'mission', but a trip to the mall in the city center to buy some new clothes. Jess had apparently ripped all her jeans, undoubtedly from dangerous 'extra-curricular activity', and Carol always went with her for moral support while she picked out some new stuff.

A news report flashed onto the television in the top corner of the shop, within an instant it had caught his eye. A picture of Barnes, on the day the helicarriers fell, standing on a muddy bank over an unconscious figure that was undoubtedly Steve Rogers. And a shot of his face, blurry and unmistakably the Winter Soldier. "Our sources inform us", the newscaster said "-that ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. the Black Widow, and new member of the Avengers, Falcon, are searching for the Russian assassin believed to be the Winter Soldier, who is believed to be in hiding around the Wakandan State. Officials refuse a press release regarding the matter, while many citizens claim to have spotted the elusive criminal, originally believed to be nothing more than an office myth."

Banner began to panic, his palms were sweaty and his felt his breath hitch. This was bad. This was reeeeeeallllly bad. If they found Barnes, he'd most likely be prosecuted for treason. They would also find the rest of them, with their less-than-stellar records, their confusing pasts and their unexplainable powers. They would instantly become cases for Area 51, and they did not need that kind of 'treatment'.

Grabbing the box, he decided that he wouldn't stay to hear the rest of the broadcast, he stumbled into the rain and ran, as fast as he could, back to his house. Bursting through the door, shocking Miguel who had been trying to make a hover board with an old skateboard and Jess and Carol's hairdryers. "Bruce, everything ok?" He asked, eyes widened at his rain-soaked clothes and the sodden card box in his hands. "Where's James?" Banner questioned, glancing around. "He's, uh- gone. He left a while back". "Where'd he go?" Bruce demanded, staring at Miguel with such intensity he felt a little uncomfortable. "Corner store, man. Went to get milk or something".

Setting down the doughnuts, Bruce ran back outside as fast as he had come in, slamming the door behind him. Recovering from one of his weirdest experiences to date, Miguel left the screwdriver on the table, beside Jessica's hair straightener. He was planning to make some sort of weapon with it. His reasoning behind dismantling it was that she only used it for undercover missions, and even then it didn't do much to aid her disguise. Grabbing a doughnut, he walked to the window and leaned out the fire escape.

James sat, hunched into a crouch against the wall. The rain pelted down, and his shirt was stuck to his skin. "That was Bruce", Miguel informed him, "He was looking for you". James shivered. "What did he want?" Miguel shrugged indifferently. "Beats me. Seemed pretty important though. I told him you were gone to the place down the street. He's probably gone there now." Miguel nodded to the glow dangling from Barnes' fingers. "I'd finish that pretty soon. In about five minutes he'll be back and you'll face the wrath of his disappointed stare". It was pretty common to see Banner with his sad, betrayed look. Yet you still felt horrible about whatever you'd done the minute it was aimed at you. James nodded at Miguel, who retreated into the warm kitchen before shutting over the window just enough to stop the smoke wafting in. He stared out into the city, dotted with lights and cars streaming to and fro like blood, and guiltily took a drag from the cigarette, inhaling until the ember was nearly at the filter before stubbing it out onto the metal grate and dropping it into the dumpster blow. Exhaling the smoke, he swung into the kitchen and bolted to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change his soaked and tainted clothes.

When Bruce made it back, fifteen minutes later, James was eating alphabet soup and wearing an old shirt with flannel pyjama pants. If the situation wasn't so dire he could have laughed. Whatever was left of S.H.I.E.L.D. was being poured into finding the Soldier; personnel, money, vehicles, while the Soldier they had called 'dangerous' and 'volatile' on the news was sitting at his dinner table, giggling with two seventeen year olds because his alphabetti spaghetti spelled out 'booby'. This wasn't to say James was harmless. He was one of the best assassins around, and ruthless to boot. But he wouldn't hurt people for no reason. He wasn't a senseless murderer.

But people didn't know that.

When he came in they greeted him, O'Hara waved him over with a grin. Jessica stood up and purposefully strutted around the table, kicking her newly clothed legs before posing beside Carol, who laughed and shrugged her arm off her shoulder. Barnes smiled and held up an empty box of doughnuts. "They were delicious. Was it a family recipe? Or did you just wing it?"

He walked closer and didn't answer. The room quieted and an unsettling silence fell. A newspaper, drenched, was clenched in his right hand and he dropped it onto the table. James considered Bruce for a moment, curiously, before picking it up. He frowned, staring at the headline before the ugly truth dawned and his jaw hung open slightly. "How?" he asked, as the others gathered to see. The headline on the paper was the same as the one on the news. WINTER SOLDIER IN WAKANDA.

"Word spreads, James. You must have left a survivor somewhere or a security camera caught you. You're on the FBI, CIA and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most wanted list. They were bound to find you".

They sat, staring at the newspaper, while Banner dripped onto the tiled floor. He sighed and kicked off his shoes before disappearing into the bedroom he and Barnes shared.

Carol leaned on Bucky's shoulder to get a closer look. They had printed a grainy photo, years old by the looks of it, of a shadow with a gun. For a second, it chilled her. "Is that you, Buck?" she whispered, resting her head against his neck. Carol was the oldest of the bunch, surpassing the two Spidery ones by two years. She was the only one who called him Buck. The rest alternated between Bucky, James, Barnes, Buchanan and, for Miguel, Jim.

"Yeah, it is." he murmured, and they went quiet again, swelled in their own thoughts. He was scowling at the paper like it had personally offended him and Jess was staring into the distance with an unfocused gaze. Barnes himself felt queasy. This spelled bad tidings, and in a split second he wished he could be anywhere else.

It's not that he was scared, per se. Worried would be a better word. He worried about what would happen if he was caught. He could remember everything he did, and he knew that he had done atrocious things and he would eventually have to pay for the acts he committed.

He remembered the people too.

The people who he had hurt or killed.

And the other people who hurt and killed.

Hydra had built him but they weren't the ones who trained him. That had been the KGB, under General Karakov. Rigorous training coupled with the knock-off serum Arnim Zola had pumped into him had made him the ultimate knight on the chess board of the Cold War.

A name spat at him from the bleary page. Natasha Romanoff. Natalia, his brain corrected. Her red hair flashed in front of him as a memory flickered to life. A boxing ring. A broken nose. The smell of sweat and dust. The taste of blood and salt stung his tongue as she dropped, swung her leg and kicked his jaw. He flew back, hitting the slippy ground with a thud.

The memories were like old friends. He could call on them whenever he felt, but sometimes they arrived unannounced, popping out of nowhere with startling speed.

The ones he shied away from came by the most often. A stubborn blonde with a penchant for righteous fury, smaller than most but no less intimidating. It was like he was frosted. He was surrounded by a white mist that sparkled like it was made of tiny diamonds. It was not unlike the fog that stuck to some memories of Natalia. He didn't quite understand it.  
He wasn't so sure that he wanted to, either.

***

Natasha Romanoff had been in the observation room for almost three hours. She never liked hospitals, an irrational fear she accepted reluctantly. The sharp smell of disinfectant coupled with the underlying silence left her feeling unsettled and antsy. This wasn't a hospital as much as it was a lab, but it fell under the same theme yet curiosity had her stepping out of her comfort zone.

The scientists were baffled. After Natasha had brought her in, they'd come to her as soon as they found anything, as instructed, telling her very little but gushing madly about how this was new territory. At the moment, they're blaming it on genetic modification. Someone tampering with human design. Whoever did it had a wild imagination which she had to give credit to, fair enough.

She was barely alive when Natasha ran into the farmhouse to check on the Howling Commandos. They had been in various states of unconsciousness and preoccupation. Their information had said that Hydra was the attacking force, but it had been a 'miscommunication' on her source's end. Hydra were running the place. They were being attacked at the very moment her squad had been mobilised to investigate their operations.

One of her men, Bennett, weakly pointed to a door. "In there," he gasped, clutching his stomach and grunting in pain. She stooped and gently pulled his hands away. No bullet wounds, just a scorched hole in his uniform with a bright green bruise on his stomach. It matched the wounds on Hydra soldiers back in Durban, but a lot less concentrated. "Be careful, Roman", he groaned as she carefully walked to the door, following little drops of blood.

Warnings against cornering a wounded animal sprang to mind and she had kicked the door open before jumping back in the nick of time as a bolt (of lightning??) shot by. She could almost hear the sizzle of the charge. A blur of red jumped out and landed a punch in her stomach

Natasha fought as best as she could. She got good punches in, smashing the mask they wore. As bad as it sounded, she was actually sort of enjoying it. This person was good, even with their injuries. Sparring was dull with no one fun to fight. Punches landed hard, leaving welts and bruises under her uniform as she upped the ante.

She swung and started kicking, pushing them further until Karate Kid tripped over some poor idiot knocked out on the floor.

Natasha leaped over the body, just as the assassin used their forearms to jump up and kick her jaw. Stars exploded in her eyes as her head snapped back and for a second she blacked out. Jesus Christ, that fucking hurt.

The assassin rolled over and made to get up when Nat decided it was game over. She spotted two bullet holes on either side of their spine and pressed down. A scream of pain and their body writhed. A single blast from Natasha's stingers and the weakened 'spider-woman', dubbed by the analysts who reviewed security footage back at the Phoenix, passed out.

She was now being examined by their scientists. An odd pair kindly donated by Agent Coulson, Fitzsimmons worked diligently, carefully monitoring her vitals and scrutinising x rays and scans. For everybody's safety, the Spider-Woman was kept sedated and only occasionally brought to consciousness for a brief while for testing, and even then she was so out of it her eyes were drowsy and she fumbled dopily with the straps holding her arms down.

Natasha wasn't really ok with testing her without her consent, but they needed to find out what was going on, and they really needed her help. Asking nicely seemed a tad irrelevant. She hadn't responded too well to reasoning back at the farm.

The observation room was dark, and when the door open and light flooded in it felt like she had been in a different world, a different dimension of silence and the pale image of surgical lab burned into its planes. It felt all too familiar, and if she didn't look around and let her mind wonder, it was Madame Stragoff standing still and proud beside her.

"They stopped feeding her anaesthetic. Hopefully she'll wake up within a couple of minutes." She said, and turned. It wasn't Stragoff (not that it could have possibly been her). It was Sam, along for the ride to Wakanda to follow his own investigation. "And maybe she'll tell us about her ink." he added, not looking at her but through the glass as well.

"Do you think she will?" He asked her, after a few minutes of watching the docs float around like ghosts in their lab coats. She had started to stir, and Simmons was talking close to her head. "To be honest, I'm not sure. We don't exactly know what Excalibur is. We don't even know if she's with or against it. For all we know she's another Hydra freak with a cyanide filling."

"She raided the facility, right. So right there we know she's not Hydra."

"Doesn't mean she's on our side, Wilson."

Fitz spoke to Simmons before going to a computer monitor. She nodded, and began undoing straps. Natasha zipped her jacket up all the way before patting Sam lightly on the back and leaving her dimension.

The interrogation wasn't much of an interrogation at all.

"What's your name?"

"Jessica Miriam Drew"

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen this August."

"Where were you born?"

"Cologne, Germany."

She had expected some sort of hardened killer, like she had been after three years of working full time as the KGB's star agent. This kid was as easy to talk to as someone you met in a café, although she wasn't chatty or smiley. She looked tired and pale and she maintained a stony indifference through the entire thing. The doctors were standing beside her bed, keeping an eye on her. Her shirt, one of Pietro's, half covered her tattoo.

"What's Project Excalibur?" Natasha questioned.

Jessica's demeanor changed subtly. She tensed and was staring at Natasha like she'd grown an extra head. She cocked her head to the side. "Sorry?", but Natasha saw the flicker in her eyes. "Your tattoo," she motioned to her sleeve, "-is the sign of Project Excalibur. Do you know what that is?" She shook her head, "Never heard of it before. I got that tattoo as a present from a friend." She exhaled a soft laugh. "Must be some sort of coincidence."

Nat leaned back in her seat. "Really? Because we found you in a covert facility, after fighting through the security and our people saw your 'light tricks' and the insignia on some of the boxes. You having the same mark on your arm as the equipment in the base you just fought through is a hell of a coincidence, don't you think?" 

For a minute, Jessica didn't respond. She just stared at her, and Natasha thought she recognised the stare. Harsh blue eyes hid fear that burrowed deep and she was sure that she'd met the girl before, she was so familiar. Nat scooted closer to her. "We want to help. We're the good guys and we want to stop Hydra as bad as you do. We need to know what they're doing, if they're developing a new weapon or something. We need to know how to stop them. You're the only one who can help us now."

Jess kept staring, but the hard edge in her gaze had vanished and she looked scared. Like a kid. She was only seventeen, Nat reminded herself. "Please Jessica, what is Project Excalibur?"

Jessica didn't answer, and after a minute, Natasha stood up slowly. She rose to the girl's height. "If you need to talk, I'm around." And she made to leave. Fitz went to reestablish a morphine flow and Simmons disappeared into the bathroom.

"New humans."

Natasha stopped. 

"A new race of people, to follow Hydra."

Jess was leaning off the edge of the bed, away from Fitz who was paused holding a needle upright. She was looking right at Natasha.

"I'm one of them, that's why I have the mark. They make 'em new and improved in labs, with extra abilities and 'gifts' and stuff. They bind humans with animal genes and see what they make."

The scientists were watching silently. Natasha walked back to the bed.

"Why haven't we seen any others?"

Jessica looked off, and paled visibly. "Because they didn't survive the tests."

She looked back to Natasha, "But that doesn't mean they haven't succeeded and just hidden 'em. Just the ones I've found never made it. Tell your people to be careful around people in bases wearing black Kevlar instead of green. They're the special ones."

Natasha nodded, thanked her and left, finding Sam in the mess room. He looked up from his sandwich as she sat down. "What's up? Did she say much?" he asked. "Yeah, actually she did. Told us about some of the stuff that Hydra's been doing."

"And?"

"And I think we're gonna need some of the heavy hitters on this one, Wilson."


End file.
